Banks not averse to investing in maritime infrastructure – Heritage Bank MD

The Managing Director/CEO of Heritage Bank Plc, Mr. Ifie Sekibo, has said Nigerian banks are willing to provide financing for building critical maritime infrastructures and other aspects of the transport sector projects once policies driving the projects are well structured.

He gave the indication at the sidelines of the International Association of Ports and Harbours Africa regional conference holding in Abuja.

He said banks are willing to provide the necessary financing and support but the operators must be clear on where they are headed.

“The government will need to develop policies that will manage infrastructure programme and we as bankers will give support. We are sure we can support and we are sure going to support,” he said.

He added that the banking industry must stake in financing but we must have an understanding on what the industry wants.

He said Heritage Bank decided to sponsor and attend the conference to understand the focus of the industry.

He also said the banks are willing to offer, and working on the possibilities of developing, long term loans with lower interest rates for operators in the industry.

Although “there is the cabbotage fund and shippers are taking advantage of it. We are still struggling with the kind of long term funding shippers need to attain the level of optimization they need and talk is in progress. We are engaging the relevant stakeholders to make sure we get loans at cheaper interest rates for them but that can’t happen overnight” he noted.

“The commercial rates today are in the neighborhood of 20 to 23 percent but the cabbotage rate is between 9 to 13 percent interest rate but how many of them have been able to borrow from the cabbotage funds given the requirements?” he queried.

He however added that fund is even for just ship building thus other aspects of intermodal transport infrastructure to decongest the ports will require external financing.